GOProud Founder Quits Republican Party

Gay Republican leader Jimmy LaSalvia has quit the GOP, citing frustration with party leaders for failing to combat anti-homosexual feeling.

"Today, I joined the ranks of unaffiliated voters," LaSalvia, the co-founder of GOProud wrote on his blog, Monday.

LaSalvia said he has worked hard "to create an atmosphere on the right where conservatives can openly support gay Americans and even support same-sex marriage.

"In that effort, we have won," he said. "But there is more work to do to root out the anti-gay and other forms of bigotry in the party.

"So I changed my voter registration today — "No Party," he wrote.

LaSalvia, 43, has been active in trying to get gay issues raised within the GOP, first with the Log Cabin Republicans — which he left because he thought they had drifted too far to the left — and then with GOProud.

"I am every bit as conservative as I've always been, but I just can't bring myself to carry the Republican label any longer," he wrote, saying he disagrees with "the big-government 'conservatives' who run the party now."

LaSalvia opened his blog-post with the latest report on party affiliation from Gallup, which showed that in 2013 a record high 42 percent of Americans identified as independents.